


Red

by We_Are_Legion



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Everyone is Dead, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Not-Quite-Necrophilia, Psychological Trauma, Vomiting, decomposition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:42:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19220851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Are_Legion/pseuds/We_Are_Legion
Summary: Ash defies this rules of this sphere. Assimilation requires bathing in vermilion, yet Ash’s flesh is powdery and bloodless. His lips are a striking violet, barely grazed and sown shut by death's kiss.How very much like Ash, Eiji thinks, to snarl against rules like this.





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> **Please heed the tags. If it’s tagged, you will encounter it.**
> 
> \- Lucifer

Amidst the cacophony of red and rust Eiji wonders if the primordial sense of rightness is genetic: lingering, half-formed memories of gazing at the amnion, breathing salt and electrolytes.

It’s easier if he pretends that the scattered gore is merely a chrysalis split apart. He can taste the iron and amine like mother’s milk heavy in his stomach; rivulets of crimson coat the fine hairs along his arms and chin.

Everything is wet and glistening and makes him yearn for drowning.

Everything is much simpler this way.

Gone is the screaming, the begging, the painful thud of his heart. Gone is the rage, the disgust, the despair.

A red void and life dripping steadily, their clear melody like dancing on piano keys. Simplicity is a welcome, numbing balm against the writhing of a thousand snakes in his skull.

Geysers spurt weakly from the gash in Max’s neck, in Ibe’s abdomen.

The air is rich with the scent of copper and iron, sulfur and rot.

Red.

So much red.

Blood coagulates around the outline of where Shorter once lay; he swears he can see each fingertip in the negative space within the

red. So much red. If he looks carefully, he can see it shifting towards something rich like rhubarb or blackberries.

Ash, however, defies this rules of this sphere. Assimilation requires bathing in vermilion, yet Ash’s flesh is powdery and bloodless. His lips are a striking violet, barely grazed and sown shut by death's kiss.

How very much like Ash, Eiji thinks, to snarl against rules like this.

Eiji presses his lips against Ash’s, softer than the brush of a hummingbird’s wings, shivering at how quickly his heat seems to trickle out of him. Ash’s mouth is soft and pliant; Eiji traces his tongue along the thin membrane just beneath his lips. A warning flare of heat crackles in his stomach.

He can’t. He shouldn’t. Such things are much too decadent, and yet he cannot stop himself. Ash’s mouth has an odd, earthy flavor to it, reminding him of dank, green places and lichen coating the undersides of hidden crevices.

Eiji groans with the pleasure of it, the taste of green so rich amidst the swirling, heady crimson.

And yet… this lush, bewitching flavor violates the sanctity of such a space.

Death begets red. Red begets birth. Birth begets death. Such rules and cycles are woven into the fabric of their genes.

Green is violation. Green is a dribbling, milky glob of spit hurled in protest.

“Always so stubborn,” Eiji laughs, gently brushing back the hair from Ash’s face. “Even like this… still, you must be different.”

Eiji knows that Ash’s ears are sown shut; he can feel a bilious torrent of curses and pleas like a hand wrapped around his throat, fingernails digging into his trachea. There’s no reason for English, suffocating and blunt, in a room where those who speak it are mere dolls.

Japanese is lush, overpowering red. Japanese tastes like heme and home; it clings to his tongue in a way that’s familiar and simple.

So simple.

“It’s better like this,” he whispers. “Sometimes you understand more when you hear less.”

Ash is still, lips still slick with the imprint of a stolen kiss.

“That’s alright,” Eiji says. "You really should rest. I’m glad to see you finally listening to me. You were never any good at doing what people told you to.”

Ash is still very pale and blue and decidedly not-red.

“Just this once, you should listen to me, Ash. This is the one time where we cannot have a choice. When we die, we become red.”

Eiji’s eyes overflow; his arms tremble violently, Ash’s shoulders quaking beneath his hands. “This is not the kind of fate you should fight against. Do you know what happens to people who rebel?”

Silence.

“Of course you don’t. I know you don’t believe in any of those things. But not believing in them doesn’t mean they’re not real. Men still die from diseases they refuse to think they have.”

And Ash is so terribly, terribly diseased. Iniquity like so many maggots wriggles beneath his skin. Eiji knows it’s mere illusion but he swears he can smell putrescine and bloat and foulness; the ground beneath Ash is dry and unsullied, yet Eiji’s stomach lurches in protest.

The vomit isn’t imaginary; he can taste his half-digested lunch, can feel it burn against his throat and trickle through his nose, horrifying pinkish froth — and isn’t that just fucking perfect? Even Eiji’s refuse is red. Quaint and obedient. Eiji feels pride in such obsequience. Even his guts can figure it out.

“See?” Eiji whispers, voice hoarse against the agony in his throat. “It’s easy. So easy. So why can’t you do it?”

Ash does not deign to reply. His lips are as motionless as ever, the evidence of Eiji’s impulse evaporating in the chill of the dungeon.

That won’t do. Another quick press of his lips, another taste of the space between lip and gum. Emboldened, Eiji runs his tongue along Ash’s; something hot and leaden stirs inside of him, sweeter than despair but too dark to be lust. Ash’s mouth is still earthy, though now slightly fetid and bitter and colder than it once was.

A small voice in the back of his head recoils; rationally, he knows he’s done more than just flirt with the dangerous boundary between mourning and desecration. Ash is the beautiful of alabaster and bone emerging from a prison of soft tissue, sins of the spirit transmuted into abuse of the flesh. Eiji yearns to know these things, to feel Ash’s viscera emerge from its cocoon, to feel his blood and plasma viscous and heady against his fingers, against his tongue.

And yet.

And yet.

Ash isn’t red.

He must be purified.


End file.
